Night Giggles
by Ezri Dax
Summary: Shepard had discovered, much to her ever growing amusement and Sam's dismay that Samantha Traynor, Comm Specialist Extraordinaire and top Lieutenant in Quantem Entanglement Theory; sometimes accidently talked in her sleep. And it was hilarious. Just a little bit of fluff :) (Traynor/FemShep)


**Disclaimer: No matter how much I wish it were true, I do not own Mass Effect or any of its characters. They are Bioware's in every way, I just take 'em out to play :3 **

**Not really sure how well this fic turned out but... hey. The idea was just whizzing about my head and I thought, well hey, why not? Hope you guys like it. J**

**Feel free to give criticism, I want to improve every way I can and I am very willing to make changes.**

* * *

Shepard loved to cuddle.

She didn't care if it was a quick embrace or a hug, or even a casual arm over the shoulder. If there was a hug on offer, she wanted it. If there was a chance to snuggle, she wanted it. Especially if it was a chance to snuggle with a certain tanned Comm Specialist. Then she most definitely wanted it.

However if anyone ever insinuated that the Great Commander Shepard was anything less than a terrifying juggernaut of destruction or great hero of the Citadel, then there was a large chance that they'd find their heads stuck up their own arses or some other orifice, depending on how lazy she was feeling. After all, she had a reputation to up hold didn't she?

As luck would have it, she was tucked up and cuddling with Sam right now having just woken up from a brief nap. A couple hours ago it had come up in conversation that somehow Sam had never actually had sex using biotic mass effect fields. Their hot shower encounter had been passionate, all fingers, tongue and kisses. But at the time Shepard had been so caught up in the moment to even think of using biotics, let alone have the brain capacity to actually do it.

Aghast the SpecTRe had quickly rectified the situation and had passionately shown the brunette the _oh so _fantastic advantages of biotics and how using biotics in the act itself could make it _so_ much more satisfying. Shepard sleepily grinned to herself. If the screams of pleasure last night were anything to go by, then Sam most definitely knew the benefits now.

Yawning Shepard tried to lift her left arm to rub the sleep out of her eyes, only to find that it was trapped under a deliciously warm, tanned body. She looked down blearily, and found that Sam had not moved since they had finished their impromptu sex session. The two women were sprawled across the bed together in a knot of limbs and flesh with Sam on top. She had her head on the blonde's chest, her hair was still mussed up and sticking to her face and neck somewhat but Shepard could still see the small, cute unconscious smile that Sam had fallen asleep with. She really was adorable.

Yawning again, Shepard tried using her other arm, only to find it was partially underneath another one of Sam's. _How was she everywhere? _With as much concentration that one could muster up just after awakening, she slid her arm up and over her head, careful not to disturb the sleeping woman on top of her and lazily stretched out her tired muscles.

_Oh... yeaahh..._

If she had to name anything as the best feeling in the world, with the exception of sex, then stretching just after you've woken up was definitely in first place. Well, that or peeing with a full bladder, or maybe cracking the joints in her neck. Deciding that she couldn't be bothered to decide, she brought her arm back down and trailed her fingers gently down Sam's spine. The tanned body exhaled contently in response and shifted slightly in an attempt to snuggle closer. Shepard smiled at her reaction, secretly pleased that even when asleep, Sam wanted to be close to her. She loved these moments, and since the war took nearly all her time up and Sam had her own duties and schedules, they rarely had time together to simply..._be._ It was nice. Perfect even.

At least, as close to perfect as Shepard could imagine, she didn't have a lot of experience in the area of romance. The fact that she was in a relationship at all was still alien to her, all her previous romances had quickly crashed and burned after a few weeks in. Either they had been too busy for proper time together or they were trying to force something that just couldn't work out. Unfortunately they usually ended in fighting or tears. How Sam hadn't run away screaming yet was confusing, but made her just as happy.

Sighing blissfully Shepard shifted back down again and hugged the sleeping women to her body, completely ready to return to her own dream land when Sam stirred again, murmuring nonsense to herself.

Shepard had discovered, much to her ever growing amusement and Sam's dismay that Samantha Traynor, Comm Specialist Extraordinaire and top Lieutenant in Quantem Entanglement Theory, sometimes accidently talked in her sleep. And it was hilarious.

When first confronted by this Sam had immediately flushed with embarrassment and had suddenly remembered that she had to go do something right then, that was really important, and it couldn't wait and only she could do it. Apparently she'd been known to say some embarrassing things in the past.

Shepard had been keeping tally of all the things she'd heard from Samantha in their nights together. The little one sided conversations had so far ranged from fairly tame ramblings about nothing to some fairly ego boosting sex talk. Shepard couldn't deny it; she loved it when _those_ dreams came along. The breathless _"Yes"s_ and _"Don't stop!"s _along with the subtle unconscious movements of her body were incredibly arousing and satisfying. It wasn't unheard of for The Commander to 'accidently' wake her up and gallantly offer to help act out the other woman's fantasy.

Purely just because she just loved to help other people. Of course.

Depending on whose point of view, the most embarrassing (hilarious) thing so far had been when Sam had vehemently argued against her dream assailant that she was definitely _not_ going to be some Elcor's sex slave. Sam's use of profanity was definitely something to behold. She'd quickly woken up from this heated dream debate to find Shepard shaking with laughter. Suffice to say, Shepard was not allowed back in bed until she'd stopped laughing.

She briefly wondered if this mumbling was going to turn into anything or if it was just that, mumbling.

"But it's so pretty..."

Shepard looked down in mild surprise. What was the phrase? Speak of the devil and the devil shall appear? Or something along the lines of that anyway. That was the first intelligible thing Sam had said tonight and honestly, she didn't know what to think about it. Knowing Sam, it could go anywhere.

"Don't be so stupid. The cat goes in the peanut butter jar!"

Shepard blinked._ Say what now?_

"Don't make me set Shepard on you!"

She sniggered.

_So that's how we are in the relationship... Far enough along to utilise me as a threat and yet still use me sexually for my shower. Clever Traynor, clever._

Although, if anything did threaten Sam, she'd damn well make sure that she'd break other person's balls, both figuratively and literally. No way was she going to let Sam get hurt.

"No, you stroke it like this"

_Huh?_

What was weirder was that Sam had started to emphasis her words with hand gestures and was unerringly managing to place feather light touches to her breasts. It wasn't that the sensation was unpleasant, in fact it was quite the opposite, but Shepard hadn't the energy to go another round tonight and she was more than a little curious as to where this conversation may go to and the touches were exceedingly distracting. Besides, she grinned to herself, why miss the opportunity to add to the conversation?

Removing Sam's hand from her chest she spoke, but kept their hands intertwined.

"How do you stroke what like this, Sam?"

"The duck that in the draw"

Well, there goes her perverse idea of a sexy dream. No way was she going to start anything with imaginary ducks floating about. Or cats in peanut butter jars for that matter.

_What the fuck is she dreaming about?_

She cleared her throat. "Why exactly, are you stroking a duck in a draw?"

"Because some Cerberus agent put it there and it looked lonely." The way Sam had said it was so matter of fact that Shepard genuinely thought she'd woken her up until Sam continued talking. "They said it was top secret and offered me a colapop to keep me quiet." A frown slipped onto her face. "I hate colapops."

"Then I'll get you a strawberry one next time we're on the Citadel" Shepard said smiling, before pressing a light kiss to the crown of the Specialist's head. "That Ok?"

"Mmm, this is why I like you..."

Shepard chuckled lightly whilst Sam hummed in contentment, unconsciously nuzzling closer to the SpecTRe's warm body.

She didn't stir again after that, seemingly having gone back into a deep slumber. Shepard supposed that this was one of the tamer sleep talking conversations they'd had together.

_Ah well, they can't all be exciting._

Somehow in their brief conversation the duvet sheets had slipped down to the small of the tanned woman's back and Shepard could see small goose-bumps beginning to form. Not wanting her lover to get cold, she released the other woman's hand and brought the sheets back up to Sam's shoulders, but not before caressing the soft skin of her shoulder blades, she knew that's where Sam kept the stress of her day.

Minutes past and Sam had made no new comments or movement, so finally Shepard let herself relax; sure she'd gotten all of the night's somewhat bizarre entertainment and almost immediately felt herself being pulled back into her own dreams. She'd forgotten how tired she was.

An final, idle thought flitted her mind just before she finally left the world of the conscious, of how fun it might be to give each other massages every once in a while. Lord knows they both needed some relaxation, and if they should for any reason carry on to more... pleasurable activities then, well. That was an added bonus.

She sighed softly and drifted off to sleep with her lover.

* * *

**"Don't let Joker out of the basket! He's not allowed out until Thursday!"**

"Whoa! What the fuck!"

Sam sat up quickly in shock but found herself airborne all of a sudden as Shepard had lifted her up and thrown her across the bed, presumably in an act of surprised self defence. However in her sleep addled state of mind, she could not stop herself from accidently flopping over the edge of the bed and landing on the floor with a loud thud.

_Ow! Son of a b****!_

Bringing a hand up to her head, she tried to get a clear thought through her baffled mind and Shepard's laughing was not helping. At all.

"What the hell!"

Dragging herself into a sitting position Sam peered over the edge of the bed to find Shepard shaking with uncontrollable laughter. "What just happened?!"

It took a while but Shepard finally managed to calm herself down enough to look over at the disgruntled woman but almost instantly burst back into laughter when she saw Sam's face. The tanned woman had managed to right herself and sit back on to the far side of the bed, opposite of the fish tank, with a scowl on her face. The luminous glow of the water gave the Comm officer a somewhat ethereal look about her and despite her confused disorientation and irritation, Shepard would have usually found her even more beautiful. But she was still laughing from Sam's random outburst, followed by her comical departure to truly appreciate it.

Finally she calmed down enough to stop laughing but couldn't the huge grin on her face. She looked over at the other woman. Sam was not amused.

"Shepard, explain to me, why you woke me up at-" She looked around for the holo alarm clock before realising she'd knocked it onto the floor with her when she'd accidently flopped backwards. "-whatever the time it is, and threw me off the bed?"

Shepard couldn't hold back a snort of laughter as the whole scene quickly replayed over in her head again. It was just as funny as it was a minute ago and she scarcely managed to restrict herself back to a grin.

Scarcely.

"Why-" She couldn't help sniggering. "Why was he in basket?"

"What?" Sam couldn't help blinking rapidly in attempt to process the bizarre question.

"You woke me up yelling, and I quote 'don't let Joker out of the basket, he's not allowed out until Thursday!'"

_Oh no..._

Sam stared at the Commander with the perfect '_oh _shit' expression before putting her head into her hands with a groan. She'd done it again. She didn't know what it was, but all her life she'd been cursed with talking in her sleep and she had absolutely no clue why. Granted it wasn't every night and it was usually just unintelligible murmuring. But when it was coherent, it was always embarrassing, either for her or for whoever happened to be in ear shot. Oh, who was she kidding, it was always embarrassing for her.

And now... now she was starting to remember her dream. Christ, was she high when she fell asleep? Well now that she thought about it, she had been come down from a rather orgasmic high when she fell asleep...

Despite her humiliation, she couldn't deny the pang of arousal as she remembered the many hours of delicious passion the two had spent together previously.

_Biotics, who knew?_

Shepard couldn't resist teasing her a little more. "You know, I think this beats the time when you started yelling that the whole of engineering had turned into vampire fairies"

Sam didn't look up but started to shake her head in her hands, stifling another groan.

Shepard smile faded. Had she pushed too far? Frowning slightly she moved to try and placate the Specialist but stopped short when a small laugh emerged from the woman.

"...Sam?"

"I... I don't know how I could dream of something so absurd! The whole thing was just...bizarre. I mean, how do you incorporate Cerberus with spy ducks and Joker in a basket?"

Shepard inwardly sighed in relief. Crisis avoided, she's not upset. Sort of. Shepard smiled again, though it was more for the cute little dimple that Sam got in the middle of her forehead whenever she was concentrating, than the weird asscrack dream. "I am neither an Asari or a philosopher, so I can't answer that for you"

Sam rolled her eyes but crawled forward until she was next to her lover and lay down to stare at the ceiling. She briefly wondered at just how many credits it cost to put in a ceiling with a window that was strong enough to withstand the stresses of battle and pressures of new atmospheres, yet large enough to get a good view of the stars as they flew through the galaxy.

"I think... I..." She paused and furrowed her brow, trying to collect her thoughts. "I think that for some reason, Cerberus was sneaking around putting ducks in draws for a 'secret weapon' of some kind, or something and then tried to buy me off with a colapop." She wrinkled her nose in disgust. "I hate cola"

"Mmm, you may have mentioned that"

Sam turned to face the SpecTRe beside her, who she was sure was most definitely still laughing at her somehow, even if she wasn't literally doing it. She hefted herself on to her right elbow and glared at her lover.

"What did I say?"

Shepard sniggered. "What didn't you say?" That earned her a slap, but she was too amused to really care.

"Shepard!"

Sam narrowed her eyes and carefully inspected the Commander's face, searching for some kind of way to see what she was hiding but was secretly happy to see how the crinkling of her lovers smile completely hid the stress lines in her face. However that did not stop her from jabbing the offending women in the side, delighting when the other women squirmed away. She didn't think many people were privy to the knowledge that the Great Commander Shepard was ticklish, and even fewer, she would have thought, knew as to _where _she was ticklish.

"Tell me!"

Shepard held up her hands in mock surrender; her attempts to repel the merciless tickling fingers were failing and she was on the verge of bursting into giggles and Commander Shepard did not giggle.

"I've already told you!" _Sort of. _"You said something about secret weapon ducks and colapop bribes and to not let Joker out of the basket until Thursday... Wanna explain that?"

Sam groaned for the second time, that sounded exactly like something she would dream up and this time she couldn't deny it herself as she actually remembered fragments of her dream, or maybe it should be called a nightmare. What her mind could dream up whilst she was unconscious was actually quite scary sometimes.

She was just glad that Shepard wasn't an Asari. If she could look into her mind... Then she'd be the only person to ever make the Great Commander Shepard cry whilst rocking in a corner, twitching uncontrollably. Not quite the way she wanted to be remembered in history.

Shepard nudged the Specialist out of her thoughts with a smirk. "What's up Traynor, embarrassed?"

"Yes! You know I am! _And_ I just remembered why Joker was in the basket." She saw Shepard's whole face light up, but quickly put a finger to her lips before she could say anything. "The only way I'm going to tell you is if you firstly, not laugh at me. Secondly, not tell anyone, and I mean that. No one. And thirdly, you have to make me breakfast. No excuses."

_I might as well try to get something out of this._

Shepard couldn't help a small roll of her eyes but nodded her agreement. Sam closed her eyes and kneaded the bridge of her nose with her middle finger and thumb of her left hand in attempt to steel herself.

Did she need therapy? Yeah, she probably did.

_Ok. Here goes nothing._

She sighed and tried to gabble it all out as quickly as she could. "Ok. So, Joker was in the bad boy basket-"

"The _bad boy_ basket?" A glare from Sam shut her up. "I'm sorry, carry on"

"-Because he slapped Garrus' custard biscuit out of his hand and started singing 'I'm too sexy' around Liara whilst doing hip thrusts in time to his singing. So he got dumped in the bad boy basket because the naughty corner was full and since I was on duty, I was told to prod him with a cattle rod every few hours until Thursday as punishment. But EDI wanted him back in the cockpit so she hired Blasto to get him out with a plastic light-saber and since I was the one on watch I had to stop him... Hence my outburst."

...

Shepard tried. She really did.

She tried biting her cheek and clenching her jaw. She tried to hold it in, to hold it back. She even tried to not react at all, despite the irrepressible twitches.

But she couldn't control that little peep of sound from the back of her throat. She clasped both hand over her mouth in an air tight seal but it was too late.

She giggled.

_Oh no._

"Ugh! You promised you wouldn't laugh!" But now that she'd told her story, it _did_ seem a lot funnier than it did when she was actually dreaming it. It seemed to make sense then. She was even struggling to hold back her own smile.

Upon seeing Sam's lapse in her irritated demeanour, Shepard couldn't help it. She had to bury her face in a pillow to stop her from laughing so loud. Maybe it was the totally weirdness of Sam's dream or maybe it was just Sam in general, but she could not remember the last time she'd laughed so hard. The visual imagery was just too funny.

"Hahahaha! What... What the hell Sam!"

Sam was by now actually chuckling along with Shepard. "I don't know. I... You'd think EDI would know better than to send a Jellyfish to do her dirty work, even if it was Blasto. And I have no idea as to how Joker managed to prance about and not break a bone; I wasn't aware that he could move like that"

They both sniggered until Shepard spoke again.

"Why the hell did Garrus have a custard biscuit in the first place? He's dextro. And seriously, what the hell with the cattle rod? Sam... I think you may need some sort of psychiatrist." Shepard dodged a pinch aimed at her shoulder and let herself fall back onto the pillow beside her lover to avoid more attacks, sneakily scooting over until they were pressed against each other, before just as sneakily intertwining their hands together. "You know, for a subordinate, you're very comfortable with chastising me"

"Are you saying you can't take a bit of fire, _Commander_? You big baby."

"You're so mean to me"

"You can take it." Stifling a yawn, Sam gave Shepard's hand a quick squeeze of affection before reverting back to the previous topic. "Mmm, you know, I think EDI would have a field day just trying to figure out 'how to be human' from my dreams. Do you think it's possible to make an AI go crazy?"

"We could test it out? Try and get her to analyse your dreams." Shepard sniggered again. "I bet that'd get some interesting results."

"Some scary results you mean. I don't particularly want to know what 'putting a duck in a draw' means."

"It means you're not getting enough sex."

Sam gave an unfeminine snort. "You know, since we spent however many hours tonight and last night... and the night before making love. I'm pretty sure that's not it. However-" She gave her lover a devilish grin. "-I'm willing to up the ante. You know, just to make sure."

"Wouldn't want you to get sick or anything, now would we?"

"Definitely not. Unfortunately though," Sam covered a yawn with her free hand. "I'm too tired right now to take my medicine. Can we rendezvous later?"

"Mmm" Shepard pressed a kiss to Sam's cheek. "Whenever you want to."

Sam smiled and reached up, threading her hand through Shepard's hair to bring their faces together. Soft lips touched and melded together in a gentle but sensational kiss before both of them sadly had to separate in mutual need for oxygen.

They both smiled happily at each other until Sam failed to successfully stifle another yawn. Shepard took pity on the exhausted Specialist but took perverse glee in the fact that it was _her_ who exhausted her, in the most pleasurable way possible, of course. "Go to sleep, you need it"

Sam nodded and yawned again before turning on her side, encouraging Shepard to do the same with a quick look over her shoulder. Shepard gladly snuggled up behind her and slung an arm over her waist, cradling her protectively. She pressed a light kiss to the back of Sam neck.

God she loved to cuddle.

A comfortable silence fell between the two and Shepard could feel Sam already drifting off to sleep; her breathing slowing to a soft cadence but Shepard could tell she wasn't quite asleep yet.

A minute or so passed by in this still of peaceful relaxation and Shepard could even feel herself starting to drift off. At least until one more thought flashed across her mind.

"I still can't believe Joker had to go in the bad boy basket."

"...I now understand why people hate you."


End file.
